A thought about Brexit

If a UK exit from the EU (a Brexit) is as all-compassing an evil as our Prime Minister now tells us, leading to global recession, the outbreak of WW3, the economic collapse and isolation of the U.K., not to mention a dive in house prices and the death of all family pets (I may have made one of those up, but only one) – why did he even suggest a referendum which risks such outcomes in the first place?
Rhetorical question, of course, he did it for short term political advantage and did not think it through. But if half the things he now says are true, how reckless was his electoral promise to hold a referendum at all, with potential exposure, however slight, to all these claimed dangers which would not have arisen otherwise?

To be clear, I personally am glad that the people are being given a say, although depressed by the low standard of official debate which amounts on both sides to deliberately muddying waters and simple scaremongering of the kind that won the Scottish referendum. But that is not the point. I did not decide to hold a referendum nor do I think an “out” vote need be a catastrophe. In any field, if a person believes that one particular outcome of an event is as catastrophic as we are now being told Brexit would be and that person can decide whether or not the event should take place, why take even the slightest risk that the catastrophe will come about? It is a ludicrous gamble, like betting your house on a single card or worse, like Russian roulette. Surely it is the very epitome of recklessness and folly?
So, either he is wildly exaggerating – lying, as it is sometimes called – what he believes will be the consequences of Brexit or he is prepared to gamble with national – no, world, according to his own warnings – security to an extent bordering on treachery or madness. Whichever it is, is there anything in modern (OK, in pre-Trump!) times which compares to such political recklessness and shows anyone’s total unfitness for high office more clearly?